What happened to the Palestinian doctors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza?

Palestinian paramedics carry away bodies of dead people uncovered in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on April 17, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 16 April 2025
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What happened to the Palestinian doctors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza?

  • Palestinian medical workers recount abuse, starvation, and torture in Israeli detention facilities
  • Rights groups say Israeli attack on health infrastructure violate international humanitarian law

LONDON: Rights groups say Israel is deliberately targeting Gaza’s health system, with at least 160 Palestinian medics currently detained having been seized from hospitals. Recently released doctors have described targeted attacks and systematic abuse.

Healthcare Workers Watch, a Palestinian watchdog, reported in February that 162 medical staff are being held by Israeli authorities, including 20 doctors and some of Gaza’s most senior physicians.

The whereabouts of 24 healthcare workers are unknown after they were forcibly removed from hospitals during Israel’s military operation, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, following the deadly Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that triggered the conflict.

Muath Alser, director of Healthcare Workers Watch, said the detention of medical workers represented a violation of international law, which had exacerbated civilian suffering by stripping Palestinians of essential medical expertise and care.

“Israel’s targeting of the healthcare workforce in this manner is having a devastating impact on the provision of healthcare to Palestinians, with extensive suffering, countless preventable deaths, and the effective eradication of whole medical specialities,” Alser told The Guardian.




Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees in Gaza on Dec. 8, 2023. (AP)

The destruction of Gaza’s health infrastructure has been widely documented. A December 2024 report by the UN Human Rights Office revealed that the enclave’s healthcare system had been brought to the brink of collapse by repeated raids.

Hospitals have been damaged — both directly and indirectly by Israeli airstrikes and combat operations — putting staff and patients at risk. More than 1,000 health workers have been killed, according to the UN.

On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed parts of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Gaza City’s last fully functional hospital. Witnesses said the strike destroyed the intensive care and surgery departments.

Israel said it targeted the hospital because it contained a “command and control center used by Hamas,” but did not provide any evidence. Governments worldwide condemned the attack, including Saudi Arabia, which described the bombing as a “heinous crime.”

IN NUMBERS

  • 1,057+ Palestinian health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.
  • 25% Gaza’s wounded with life-changing injuries who require ongoing rehabilitation.

(Source: OCHA)

Amid growing concerns over Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, which is designed to protect hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and their staff, Gaza’s health sector is struggling to meet the overwhelming demand.

According to the World Health Organization, just 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remained partially operational as of January, with fewer than 1,800 beds available for tens of thousands of patients.

Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza, has warned that “the health sector is being systematically dismantled,” citing shortages of medical supplies, equipment, and personnel.

Since October 2023, at least 50,900 Palestinians have been killed and more than 115,688 injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities. As of September 2024, a quarter of the wounded had suffered life-changing injuries.

The WHO also verified that 297 healthcare workers in Gaza had been detained by the Israeli military since October 2023 but had no details on who was still being held. Healthcare Workers Watch reports that 339 have been detained.




The whereabouts of 24 healthcare workers are unknown after they were forcibly removed from hospitals during Israel’s military operation. (AFP)

Several organizations have shared testimonies from recently released Palestinian doctors describing systematic raids, arrests, and allegations of torture.

Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, in a report released in February, said many medical workers had been seized while on duty and held for months without charge under Israel’s Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows indefinite detention without evidence.

Several accounts from released detainees include details of physical violence, sexual abuse, verbal insults, and degrading treatment.

For instance, Dr. Khaled Alser, 32, a surgeon arrested at Nasser Hospital, said: “On the day of my arrest, the army ordered the evacuation of the hospital. There was a battalion outside, and they forced us to strip in front of everyone and walk naked for about 30 meters.”

He said detainees were left naked for hours before being moved to overcrowded rooms in houses, where they were handcuffed with plastic zip ties for five days and interrogated.

“I was next to my medical colleagues when they took them, tortured and beat them, and later released some while arresting others,” he added.

FASTFACTS

  • As of Sept. 24, 2024, at least three Palestinian physicians have died in Israeli custody.
  • Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh died under torture in Israeli custody in May 2024.

(Source: MAP)

Twenty of the 24 medical workers visited by PHRI lawyers said they were arrested while on duty in direct violation of international laws protecting medical staff from interference.

In addition, prison authorities employed brutal interrogation methods. One 60-year-old emergency coordinator and ambulance driver said he was tortured with loud music, beatings, and threats.

“I was interrogated in the ‘Disco Room’ for a week, where the volume was always deafening,” he said. “They beat me so badly during one session that my tooth filling fell out.

“They poured cold water on me, struck me on the head with a cellphone, and beat me half to death. They threatened to harm my family and parents.”




Israel said it targeted Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on Sunday because it contained a “command and control center used by Hamas,” but did not provide any evidence. (AFP)

Similarly, a 38-year-old nurse said he was suspended by his wrists from the ceiling, his legs forced backward, and left in that position for hours.

“They humiliated me and spat on me,” he told the PHRI. “During the interrogation in Ofer Prison, they extinguished cigarettes on my head and poured coffee over me. I was brutally beaten.”

International humanitarian law strictly prohibits physical or psychological abuse during interrogations. Article 32 of the Fourth Geneva Convention bars acts that cause physical suffering or extermination of protected persons, including medical personnel.

“Health workers should be protected to do their work,” a WHO spokesperson told Arab News. “Anyone in detention must have their human and legal rights respected.”




A 38-year-old nurse said he was suspended by his wrists from the ceiling, his legs forced backward, and left in that position for hours during interrogation at Ofer Prison. (AFP)

Israel has accused Hamas and other militant groups of using hospitals as command centers. Under international humanitarian law, hospitals lose protected status if they are used for military purposes.

The deliberate denial of food was also said to be commonplace in Israel’s detention facilities. 

The report said all 24 medical professionals interviewed suffered severe malnutrition, as prison authorities provided inadequate meals — in terms of quality and quantity — that also ignored preexisting health conditions like diabetes, causing lasting damage.

One doctor described the food as lacking vitamins and a balanced diet, weakening the detainees’ immune systems. PHRI confirmed this by consulting a clinical nutritionist for an expert assessment of conditions at Ofer Prison near Ramallah.

Compounding health issues from violent treatment and extreme malnutrition in custody, the testimonies highlighted a severe lack of medical care, even for those with preexisting conditions.




Hospitals have been damaged — both directly and indirectly by Israeli airstrikes and combat operations — putting staff and patients at risk. (AFP)

The Israeli Prison Service, in a statement to the American broadcaster CNN following the release of PHRI’s report, denied knowledge of abuse against Palestinian medical workers inside its facilities and claimed it acted according to local law.

In the same vein, the Israeli Defense Forces told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle it “operates in accordance with international law and does not detain medical workers due to their work as such.”

It denied withholding medical treatment or food and said that “any mistreatment of detainees, whether during detention or interrogation, is strictly prohibited and constitutes a violation of Israeli and international law, and of IDF regulations.”

The IDF added that any mistreatment would be investigated.

International human rights organizations and UN agencies have documented Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing it of war crimes.

Amnesty International said in December that “Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.”

In October 2024, a UN Commission on Detainee Treatment report found that Israeli security forces deliberately killed, detained, and tortured medical personnel, targeted medical vehicles, and tightened the siege on Gaza, restricting permits for medical treatment.

“These actions constitute the war crimes of wilful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination,” it added.

Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in August that Israel’s “mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows.”

She called for a thorough investigation into “the torture and ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics, including by the International Criminal Court.”

A lawyer representing Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, whose detention by Israeli forces in December sparked international condemnation, said after visiting him in Ofer Prison that the doctor had been tortured, beaten, and denied medical treatment.

In addition, the accounts in PHRI’s report align with findings by other media and rights organizations, including a 2024 Human Rights Watch report that documented similar abuses. It said the detentions have worsened Gaza’s health crisis by limiting access to essential care.




A lawyer representing Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya (C), whose detention by Israeli forces in December sparked international condemnation, said after visiting him in Ofer Prison that the doctor had been tortured, beaten, and denied medical treatment. (AFP)

Likewise, interviews with The Guardian and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism revealed testimonies from eight senior Gaza doctors, detailing torture, beatings, starvation, and humiliation during months of detention.

Some believe they were singled out for extreme violence because they were doctors.

Dr. Issam Abu Ajwa was in the middle of performing emergency surgery on a patient at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza when Israeli soldiers came for him.

Describing his ordeal, he said: “One of the senior interrogators had given instructions that because I was a senior consultant surgeon, they should work hard to make sure that I lost (the use of my hands) and became unable to perform surgery.”

He added that he was handcuffed 24 hours a day, and interrogators used planks with chains to restrain his hands for hours at a time. “They said they wanted to make sure I could never return to work.”

None of the eight senior doctors were given an explanation for their detention, the report says. All were released without charge after months in custody.




Relatives and medics mourn by the body of Palestinian doctor Hani Al-Jaafarawi, Gaza’s ambulance and emergency teams chief during his funeral at Al-Ahli Arab hospital on June 24, 2024. (AFP)

In a statement to DW, the Israeli military rejected the allegations raised by The Guardian, saying: “During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, suspects of terrorist activities were arrested.”

It added: “The relevant suspects have been taken for further detention and questioning in Israel. Those who are not involved in terrorist activity are released back to the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.”

PHRI’s report found that Palestinian medical workers were primarily questioned about Israeli hostages, tunnels, hospital structures, Hamas activity, and fellow physicians — rarely about criminal activity or substantive charges.

The report said the interrogations appeared focused on “intelligence gathering rather than investigating alleged security offenses.”

It noted that after months in detention, most medical personnel were never formally charged and were denied legal representation.




Israeli military patrols near Al-Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City on November 22, 2023. (AFP)

Naji Abbas, director of PHRI’s Department for Prisoners and Detainees’ Rights, said: “Through the testimonies, through our visits, we started to understand that the doctors were arrested mainly for collecting information.

“When you hear a doctor saying that he was forced to draw a map of the hospital, when he was asked about his colleagues … you can understand that there is a pattern of questioning … fishing for information,” he told Democracy Now, a left-leaning US news program.

In a statement within the February report, Abbas called the “unlawful detention, abuse, and starvation of Gaza’s healthcare workers” a “moral and legal outrage.”

He added that “medical professionals should never be targeted, detained, or tortured for providing life-saving care,” and demanded Israel “release all detained medical personnel immediately,” urging the international community to “demand accountability.”

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Nine of Gazan doctor’s 10 children killed in Israeli air strike

Updated 9 sec ago
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Nine of Gazan doctor’s 10 children killed in Israeli air strike

  • Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar also saw her husband, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, critically injured
  • Couple’s only surviving child, 11-year-old boy, was severely wounded

LONDON: A pediatrician working in southern Gaza has lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli air strike that hit her family home, in what fellow medics have described as an “unimaginable” tragedy.

Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, who was on duty at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis at the time of the strike, also saw her husband, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, critically injured.

The couple’s only surviving child, an 11-year-old boy, was severely wounded and underwent emergency surgery on Friday, according to reports.

“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” said Dr. Muneer Alboursh, director general of Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. “In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted, Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”

Graphic footage shared by Palestinian Civil Defense, and verified by media outlets including the BBC, showed the remains of small children being pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building near a petrol station in Khan Younis.

British surgeon Dr. Graeme Groom, who is volunteering at Nasser hospital, said Dr Al-Najjar’s surviving son was his final patient of the day.

“He was very badly injured and seemed much younger as we lifted him onto the operating table,” he said in a video posted to social media.

Groom added that the child’s father, also a physician at the same hospital, had “no political and no military connections and doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media,” calling the strike “a particularly sad day.”

He continued: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here… and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”

Relative Youssef Al-Najjar, speaking to AFP, made an emotional plea: “Enough. Have mercy on us. We plead to all countries, the international community, the people, Hamas, and all factions to have mercy on us. We are exhausted from the displacement and the hunger.”

Dr. Victoria Rose, another British doctor at the hospital, said the family had lived near a petrol station and speculated that the strike may have caused or been worsened by a large explosion. “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza,” she said.

The Israel Defence Forces did not comment directly on the strike, but in a general statement said it had hit more than 100 targets across Gaza in a 24-hour period.

The Hamas-run health ministry reported at least 74 Palestinian deaths in that time frame alone.

The UN has warned that Gaza may be entering its “cruelest phase” of the war, with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denouncing Israel’s restrictions on aid as exacerbating a humanitarian catastrophe.

Although Israel partially lifted its blockade this week, allowing limited aid to enter, the UN says the deliveries fall far short of the 500–600 trucks of supplies needed daily to meet basic needs for the territory’s 2.1 million people.

Since Israel launched its offensive after Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251 others, on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which includes women and children in its total but does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

-ENDS-


Erdogan, Syria’s Sharaa hold talks in Istanbul

Updated 50 min 35 sec ago
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Erdogan, Syria’s Sharaa hold talks in Istanbul

  • Video footage on Turkish television showed Erdogan shaking hands with Sharaa
  • The two countries’ foreign ministers also attended the talks

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was holding talks with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Istanbul on Saturday, news channel CNN Turk and state media said, broadcasting video of the two leaders greeting each other.

The visit comes the day after US President Donald Trump’s administration issued orders that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria. Trump had pledged to unwind the measures to help the country rebuild after its devastating civil war.

Video footage on Turkish television showed Erdogan shaking hands with Sharaa as he emerged from his car at the Dolmabahce Palace on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait in Turkiye’s largest city.

The two countries’ foreign ministers also attended the talks, as well as Turkiye’s defense minister and the head of the Turkish MIT intelligence agency, according to Turkiye’s state-owned Anadolu news agency.

The Syrian delegation also included Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.

MIT chief Ibrahim Kalin and Sharaa this week held talks in Syria on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militant group laying down its weapons and integrating into Syrian security forces, a Turkish security source said previously.


US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources

Updated 24 May 2025
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US strike on Yemen kills Al-Qaeda members: Yemeni security sources

  • “Five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan
  • Washington once regarded the group as the militant network’s most dangerous branch

DUBAI: Five Al-Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.

“Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al-Qaeda members were eliminated,” said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government in Aden.

“The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al-Maraqsha killed five,” said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al-Qaeda.

The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al-Qaeda’s local leaders was among the dead.

Washington once regarded the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network’s most dangerous branch.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi militants against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on militant-held areas of the country.

The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.

The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.


Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian

Updated 24 May 2025
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Iraq seeks deal to swap kidnapped academic for jailed Iranian

  • Iraqi officials are working on a deal to release kidnapped Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed for murdering an American civilian
  • Tsurkov was kidnapped in March 2023 allegedly by paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq

BAGHDAD: Baghdad is working on a deal to free kidnapped Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov in exchange for an Iranian jailed in Iraq for murdering a US civilian, security sources said Saturday.
The deal depends on US approval, the senior Iraqi security officials told AFP, asking to remain anonymous because the matter is considered sensitive.
Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2023.
There was no claim of responsibility for her abduction, but Israel accused Iraq’s powerful Kataeb Hezbollah of holding Tsurkov.
The Iran-backed armed faction has implied it was not involved.
Iraq has been working to solve the issue which “depends on the Americans’ approval for the release of the Iranian accused of killing an American citizen,” a senior security source said.
The three Iraqi sources said that Washington has not yet agreed to this.
“The Americans have not yet agreed to one of the conditions, which is the release of the Iranian who is being held for killing an American citizen,” one official said.
Iraq is both a significant ally of Iran and a strategic partner of the United States, and has for years negotiated a delicate balancing act between the two foes.
The Iranian and another four Iraqis were sentenced to life in prison in Iraq for murdering American civilian Stephen Troell, who was shot dead in Baghdad in November 2022.
In December last year, the US Justice Department announced that a “complaint was unsealed... charging” Iranian Mohammad Reza Nouri, “an officer” in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with allegedly orchestrating the killing.
Tsurkov, who is likely to have entered Iraq on her Russian passport, traveled to the country as part of her doctoral studies.
Security and diplomatic sources have told AFP they do not rule out the possibility that she may have been taken to Iran.
In November 2023, Iraqi channel Al Rabiaa TV aired the first hostage video of Tsurkov since her abduction.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or to determine whether she spoke freely in it or under coercion.


British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

Updated 24 May 2025
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British Airways cancels Israel flights until August

  • UK carrier suspended route to Tel Aviv after Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport in May
  • Air France flights remain suspended but Delta, Aegean flights recommenced this week

LONDON: There will be no British Airways flights from the UK to Israel until at least August, the airline has said.

BA cited security concerns for the decision, having suspended flights to Tel Aviv in May following a Houthi missile attack that injured six people at Ben Gurion International Airport. The airline subsequently evacuated staff staying in the city to the Austrian capital Vienna.

A BA spokesman said in a statement: “We continually monitor operating conditions and have made the decision to suspend our flights to and from Tel Aviv, up to and including 31 July. We’ve apologised to our customers for the inconvenience.”

A message on the airline’s website for the route reads: “Sorry, we have no flights available. Please edit your search to find other routes.” The next scheduled flight from London to Tel Aviv is on Aug. 1.

Air France has halted flights in and out of Israel until at least May 26. Greek airline Aegean resumed flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, while US carrier Delta commenced daily flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Ben Gurion on Monday.  Both had suspended their routes following the Houthi attack.